Fug Girls: Planning a Sleepover With Elizabeth Banks

Share

Just as we’d hoped all the torrential rain was behind us, the skies opened while we were filing into Monique Lhuillier’s Tuesday-morning show. It pounded the ceiling of the Promenade tent so hard we thought maybe it would collapse and we’d have to rope Elizabeth Banks into helping us build a shelter out of white folding chairs. We assume she’s an intrepid sort — after all, we overheard her telling a reporter that she knew she had to be a trouper and come over to the Lhuillier show even though it was raining farm animals outside, and as we all know, it’s people who cross the street in the rain who are our nation’s true heroes.

Banks did look gorgeous — if perhaps in dire need of something made with white flour — in a white and gray dotted dress and shoes we think were Prada, based on a recent drooling excursion to Saks. Of the week, she said, “I was enjoying myself very much, until it started pouring rain,” then added with a laugh, “I was about five minutes away from patting myself down with paper towels.” See? Intrepid.

She sat next to a very subdued-seeming Zoe Saldana, a beaming Perrey Reeves, and starlet Malin Akerman, whose omnipresence we couldn’t explain until we realized she’s in the much-anticipated Watchmen movie coming out next spring and her people want her to be a household name by then. Malin had on a kimono-style Lhuillier dress, Tracy Reese shoes, and earrings she told a girl she bought two years ago from a street vendor in New York. She was totally enthused about the entire Fashion Week experience — especially getting to meet Justin Timberlake at the William Rast show on Sunday. “He’s the loveliest celebrity I’ve ever met,” she bubbled. “When I see musicians, I’m, like, starstruck.” Aw, we would be, too. Her candor was so endearing that we may even be ready to forgive her for being in that hideous Ben Stiller movie where he married her and then she started burping a lot, or something. We don’t know. The rage blackout erased most of the previews from our memories.

A stoic Rosetta Getty also made an appearance, remaining all business the whole time. We couldn’t help noticing that before the show started, Getty turned full around to talk to the girl behind her and stayed that way, keeping her back firmly turned to the line of lovely young (and in two cases, blonde) actresses to her left. Now, we realize she may have been focused on work, but given the nasty turmoil she’s experienced lately, we also wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to get all up in the immaculate grills of flaxen-haired starlets who like clothes. We’re sure she’s itching to throw a few punches Sienna Miller’s way — hell, we’re forming a line behind her — and it would be unfortunate if she boiled over and walloped a surrogate instead.

Her reserve contrasted sharply with the demeanor of the girls. As the show progressed, Akerman and Reeves got increasingly excited about everything they saw, the former mouthing “Oh my GOD” at three or four things as her eyes widened. Even Banks got in on the act; by the end it felt like such girl bonding that we suspect the three of them were headed right back to the Bryant Park Hotel for a slumber party where they would braid each other’s hair, eat ice cream from the carton, and play MASH. Can we come? We’ll bring the Ouija board.